STORY - "The Ultimate Excursion"


In December-January eight senior students from diocesan schools travelled to India , accompanied by Greg Stevens and Maureen Dillon. Greg and Maureen had travelled with Director of Schools Wayne Tinsey in 2005. Following are extracts from student journals…


27 December 2006

Touchdown. We disembarked right onto the tarmac and into a smog - thick and enclosing, that created a very surreal atmosphere at 11.30pm. Shuttle buses took us to the arrival terminal, and RELIEF! the crowds of people we were warned about weren't there to compete for our luggage. But this lulled us into a false sense of security because when we stepped outside, India presented itself…as a seven year old boy in a bright yellow jumper. "Sir, Madame, give me money, sir. Madame can you give me money?" he continued with polite but desperate innocence. They said that India hits you straight away and it has lived up to its name so far. My reaction was to ignore it and walk faster toward the bus, trying to pretend that this wasn't actually happening. It felt heartless, I couldn't even look him in the eye...and the tears welled up. More of India unveiled itself on the bus ride to the hotel. Honking our way through the most insane driving and traffic jams imaginable, and then a COW!..standing on the side of the road in the middle of the night…unusually calm, amid chaos. Along the footpaths I started seeing a lot of tarps tied up to buildings and fences ...then there were the odd bundles of blankets, I couldn't ignore THAT. The blankets were people sleeping on the footpaths…..

Lauren Reynolds-Evans
St Paul 's Booragul

Rural village 30 December 2006

Yesterday we visited a 'native' village about 50km by train, tuk tuk and bicycle driven cart from Kolkata. Some of these children had never seen white people before so as you could imagine a lot of little children were scared and hid from us. One little boy even cried!

The village was a strange experience but so humbling and uplifting. We met the villagers and tried to communicate. Thank goodness we had a guide who spoke Bengali and could translate for us! We met with the “female village elders” and drank tea made with polluted water, the only water source in the village, with them. As we sat in the village square out the front of the school that was built by Chetanalaya (Caritas), it seemed as though the whole village came and gathered around, young and old, male and female, to watch us, listen and share stories. We discovered that the largest issue facing the villagers was the health of the females. The diseases would be most probably sexually related perhaps even HIV-AIDS (5 million are afflicted in India ). This village had no electricity so as night began to fall we had to leave. We quickly took photos and showed the children their faces on the screen on the back of the magic shiny box.

At the house where we were staying we met a five year old girl called Priya. Not surprisingly, Priya couldn't speak a word of English so it was fun to try and communicate with her. She loved cameras and took many photos and picked up how to take and review the photos very quickly. She also loved the torch we brought and I gave her a smiley face stamp to keep, to the dismay of her parents as everyone and everything in the house was stamped that night! Next morning she was in tears as she knew we were leaving.

Gerard Higgins
St Mary's Campus ASC

One of the families invited us into their home, a cluster of small buildings surrounding an even smaller courtyard area, and in one tiny shed we found men working. There were three men in a hot shed labouring over their machines (which looked like bench press drills). They were making pens! One made the body, another the lid, while the last made the blue tops and bottoms! On an average week they could make about 15,000 pens; this earns them about 50 rupees…just over $1… for eight hour days… working full days in a tiny cramped and poorly lit hut which is sweltering hot in summer and freezing in winter.

Eve Maguire
St Mary's Campus, ASC

The Trek: 4 –7 January 2007

The Trek was one of the most rewarding challenges. It's difficult to step outside your comfort zone but not many people get to see Mount Everest . It's a different world up in the Himalayas . Everything is isolated, even your mind wanders far. The silence is foreign to me, but it makes me feel safe.

Sometimes it is hard to stop and admire the continuous beauty. The trek is a mental as much as a physical test and the view sweeps past so fast. Moving through grass tracks, stone tracks, dirt tracks and fog all seems like a blur. The environment changes as we meander upwards, nature has its own structure. Each turn brings something different and exciting.

We've met many people on our trek and seen many houses and communities upon the mountainside. They are untouched and unaffected by technology. It is hard to believe that so many people live here all year round in very extreme weather conditions.

We are thousands of metres above the world and the clouds. I can't relax - my eyes are stuck to the view. From the glorious sunrise to majestic sunset every second is a significant moment that brings happiness. I think my happiness comes from the isolation. Up here I can't be touched by anything else but the natural environment. Here I feel small.

Ben Tupou
St Mary's ASC

Postscript

I was inspired by the people who had dedicated their lives to working for social justice. The approach taken by most organisations was to provide education to equip individuals to help themselves. Everyone involved worked towards their goals with tremendous hope despite struggling everyday with enormous inequality.

We didn't need to leave Australia to witness appalling injustices. The emphasis on education, enduring hope and long term approaches that are succeeding in India could be equally effective here. We cannot ignore the injustices of our national history, we can only strive for a more just future.

Sarah Lutherborrow
St Clare's Taree

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